


Shrink

by disillusionist9



Series: Choose Dare [50]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Deutsch | German, Durmstrang, Gen, Sad Ending, Violence, Wrongful Imprisonment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-01
Updated: 2016-09-01
Packaged: 2018-08-12 10:47:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7931731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/disillusionist9/pseuds/disillusionist9
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Drabble #51 of 100 | Remus is captured by a Durmstrang professor to use as a live demonstration to his class and Viktor objects to his treatment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shrink

Remus counted backwards from one hundred under his breath, this time in German.

" _Einhundert, neunundneunzig, achtundneunzig_ …"

"Take notes, as the werewolf begins the first stage of its transformation."

The moons rays were blocked by the thick stone walls of the classroom, as well as what little light the sun afforded the bleak landscape outside. Cold, cold air swept through the bars of the cage he was huddled in the back of. His body, already in the throes of a war between man and beast, was helpless against the pull of a floating charm moving his body to a more observable position.

" _Zweiundachtzig, einundachzig, achtzig_ …"

Rattling against the bars went straight through his eardrums into his bones, sending different tremors of pain through his prostrate form.

"Be silent, _varulv_ ," barked the professor at the front of the classroom. The cage, Remus woke up in the day before, was on a raised dias near to the man's lectern.

He moved his face to lay on his side rather than nose pressed to the floor. The transformation was slow without the light of the moon, and more painful for it, and the coolness of the metal floor was both sharp and soothing on his cheek. Dozens of eyes watched him even as his arms cracked in a dozen places...Merlin were these children even fifteen?

Remus hadn't practiced his German in many years, he usually didn't have to wait until twenty two in English before he'd transformed.

The whispered numbers grew in volume as each breath passed through his lungs, and more bones snapped and muscles groaned.

" _Siebenundsechzig, sechsundsechzig, fünfundsechzig_ …"

Each syllable grew more difficult, struggling at each ridge in his trachea up to the base of his tongue, coarsely passing his uvula and out through his teeth. There were still thirty two teeth to cross, not yet a sharp set of forty-eight. His mouth was always one of the last parts to transform. Remus used the counting as a way to gauge his sanity, to measure the shrinking awareness of his surroundings, especially without Wolfsbane.

"Krum!" barked the professor, his heavy soled boots stomping across the stage nearer to Remus. "Get away from that beast, take your seat!"

"Don't you see he is in _pain_?" a voice shot back, followed by the steps of a much shorter man than the one imprisoning him. "That is no beast, that is a _man_."

"Is that so, Krum? Looks like your head is still up in the clouds playing Quidditch."

A clammy hand gripped the scruff of his neck, where a shock of fur sprouted somewhere between _zweiundfünfzig_ and _achtundvierzig_ , reaching for him through the bars.

"This, Krum, is a werewolf. A beast."

The other hand, as clammy as the first, yanked his head back by his hair to expose his exponentially changing features from man to wolf. Remus snapped viciously at the painful way his neck was bent backwards as the bones changed beneath his skin. His teeth nearly grazed the sleeve of the professor, ripping the cuffs to ribbons before the arm was removed entirely.

"Do you see, he is-"

"He is in pain, we should leave him alone!"

The boy continued to fight his case as Remus made his way through the twenties towards the teens, nearly losing consciousness when his knees cracked and his femurs shrank back, his metatarsals stretching and popping. The legs were nearly as painful as the spine, and the spine was always the last, that breaking point between man and wolf.

Arguing continued before a hard slap rang through the room, a body stumbling back…but Remus was arching and howling his misery as each vertebrae moved individually, twisting round his spinal cord and tearing the nerves into new places.

_Vier...drei...zwei…eins_


End file.
